A World of Monsters
by reptilia28
Summary: The Citadel Council is at war with an immense, implacable foe: the rachni. Having barely survived an encounter with such a foe, the sole remaining crew members of the Descending Tide finds themselves marooned on an entirely new world. A world of wonders. A world of terrors. A world of monsters.
1. Chapter 1

Space. A vast realm once thought to be the dominion of gods, piquing the curiosity of all those who looked up towards the sky. Ancient poets and philosophers often thought of it like the sea, a place of wonder and mystery where the fish were dwarfed by the stars in the sky. Once those who looked towards it managed to bring themselves closer to the stars however, they found the reality to be rather more bleak than they imagined. Far from the wonderous ocean that the old storytellers believed, space was a few oases of light and matter floating amidst an immense, incomprehensible expanse of _nothing_. At least out at sea, there was a chance to survive if thrown overboard, be it by swimming back to their ship or, if they were lucky, drifting to shore; space was not nearly so forgiving, able to kill a person in a variety of unpleasant ways faster than it would take to list them all. And that is before one considers the incredible distances that space provides. Stars that seem to be right next to each other would be so far apart that entire generations would be born and die before a ship could travel from one to the other.

Still, as desolate as space can seem to the uninitiated, there are still marvels to be had if one knew where to look. Throughout the galaxy life and wealth can be found if one knows where to look. One such place is Star System C-272O6, a system so obscure that it does not even have a proper name. In it five planets orbit a yellow star, three rocky planets and two gas giants, separated by an asteroid belt. Under ordinary circumstances, such a discovery would have been a momentous occasion; for the crew of the _CFV Descending Tide_ , such things would have to be ignored for more pressing concerns, such as the heavy damage that their vessel currently possessed.

The bridge of the _Descending Tide_ is a scene of chaos. All throughout the room computer displays flickered erratically; some are too damaged to work at all, merely spitting out the occasional spark. The acrid scent of burnt electronics permeated the room. What few crew members that are relatively uninjured try to help the wounded while doing their best to ignore their colleagues lying dead on the floor or at their stations. In the center of the madness sits Captain Alena T'ania, a stern-faced woman with sapphire skin and smooth, contoured crests running along her scalp. Though her face is marred by the indigo blood dripping down her face from a laceration along her forehead, she remains stoic and resolute, a beacon of calm in the chaos around her.

"Status report!" she barks out.

"More than half the crew are dead or critically injured, ma'am," one of the crew members responds. "Our cannon is dry, we only have a few torpedoes left, and the GARDIAN array is completely shot on the starboard side. Our shields are down to thirty percent and I'm detecting hull breaches across the board. Simply put Captain, we're screwed. It's a miracle we managed to survive that last relay jump, and I'm not sure we can handle another one." Captain T'ania mutters a curse under her breath.

"Every day the rachni get bolder. The Council needs to know that the bugs are pushing deeper into our territory. Do we have any data drones left?" she asks.

"A couple, ma'am, but the rachni have been taking out our network. It'll be weeks before it reaches the nearest buoy," replies her subordinate.

While mass relays are invaluable in space travel due to their ability to cross dozens of light years nearly instantaneously, during times of war they provide easily defensible choke points. While it is possible to travel faster than light without the use of the mass relays, doing so will build a static charge throughout the ship, potentially killing the crew if it is not dealt with regularly. Thus, during times of war, critical information is couriered via specially designed unmanned drones, built robustly enough to withstand being in FTL for months at a time without issue.

"And if we don't do it now, Goddess knows how many months the rachni will rampage through asari space unchecked," the captain rebuts. "Do it." Within the hour, an unmanned drone deploys from the _Descending Tide_ , loaded with information about the current situation. With a sigh of relief, Captain T'ania says, "That's one problem dealt with. Now onto the next. Helmswoman, plot a course through the system. We need to find someplace to land on and wait for rescue."

"Ma'am?" said helmswoman asks in confusion. "You do realise that the chances of us finding a garden world is one in-"

"I realize that, but it's better than staying here, waiting to die of disease or suffocation," T'ania interrupts tersely. Suitably chastised, the pilot nods her head and begins to carry out her orders.

Over the next week, a palpable tension lingers through the halls of the _Descending Tide_ like a miasma. Although thick bulkheads and kinetic barriers block radiation from leaking into the habitable areas of the ship, each move into faster-than-light travel elicits and ominous shudder from the ship's hull. As each day passes, more of the injured crew succumbs to their wounds. Having long exhausted the medical bay's meager refrigeration units, the survivors can do little more than place the dead in body bags and stow them away in emptied store rooms, where they can hopefully be given a proper burial later.

"Captain, I've found something!" one of the crew members cries out. She brings up an image of their target, the furthest rocky planet from the sun. Though the image of the planet is flickering and fragmented, the blue oceans and white clouds are evidence enough of liquid water, and thus likely an oxygen-based atmosphere. Several large landmasses of green and speckled brown breaks up the orb of blue. Over one of the oceans, a large mass of clouds begins to swirl, the beginnings of a hurricane. When the captain sees the planet, a smile begins to grow on her stern face.

"Looks like fate is finally in our favor, ladies," she says amidst the triumphant cheers of her subordinates. "Do we have any probes that we can launch? I want to know what we're getting into before we start settling in."

"No, ma'am, all our probes were damaged in the fight," the crew member replies. "But there is something else I think you should see." The projection of the planet zooms in towards the coast of one of the continents before highlighting a specific portion. Even with the compromised resolution, they can see the shapes too large and organized to have been made by the random hand of nature, which meant civilization. A primitive civilization, considering the lack of radio signals or even widespread planetary development, but civilization nonetheless.

"An excellent find," T'ania says with a satisfied nod. "We'll have to be careful not to upset the locals too much when we-"

"Contact on the starboard quarter!" a crew member shouts out, cutting her off. She gasps in shock at the information she receives. "It's...oh Goddess, it's the rachni!" A new image appears, monochrome from laser imaging, but the bulbous, hive-like structure is unmistakable. Fortunately for them, it is only a small scouting frigate, equal to the _Descending Tide_ and like them, heavily damaged. But even a damaged ship can still pose a threat if there are reinforcements nearby.

"Damn it," the captain mutters to herself. "If any more of those bugs get here, they'll devour the natives and turn it into another one of their hives. Bring us about! Face the port side to the enemy and redirect all available power to the shields on that side. After that, get to the escape pods and make planetfall." As the crew scramble to complete their orders, T'ania presses a button on her console, activating the shipwide PA system. "Attention, crew of the _Descending Tide_! This is Captain T'ania. You are ordered to report immediately to your nearest escape pod. This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill! We are abandoning ship, report to your nearest escape pod immediately!"

"Torpedoes inbound!" one crew member shouts out. Over a dozen missiles spew forth from the enemy ship, flying towards the _Descending Tide_ like a swarm of insects. The GARDIAN turrets turn towards the incoming missiles, lasers burning them out in transit. At peak performance, the _Descending Tide's_ array would have been more than sufficient to defend against such a volley, but with one half of the turrets destroyed and the rest in poor repair, a couple manage to slip through the defenses, smashing against the kinetic barriers protecting the ship.

"The shield's holding, ma'am, but we can't take much more of that," one of the crew says.

"Then transfer all functions to my station and get to the escape pods," Captain T'ania orders. When she sees her crews' confused looks, she continues, "If we all leave, the rachni will know that we're trying to flee and shoot us down. If I say here, I can distract them, giving you time to escape. Now do it, that's an order." Reluctantly the crew nod their heads and relinquish control of the ship to their captain before giving one final salute.

"Goddess guide your way, Captain," they declare as one.

"And to you as well," T'ania replies. "It has been an honor serving with you. Now get out of here!"

After they leave, Captain T'ania brings up the ship's functions at her station. A deluge of information, far more than any one person could handle normally, appears before her, but she only needs to manage it for a few minutes. With one hand she sends a command to load the last of the _Descending Tide's_ torpedoes and prime them for launch while with the other she starts to shut down non-essential ship functions. Refrigeration, barriers over hull breaches, anything that she can take away to squeeze an extra drop of power to sustain the shields. As she sees the first of the life pods jettisoning, she fires the torpedoes. The few meager missiles are no match for the rachni ship's point defenses, but if they're occupied shooting down her torpedoes, then they're not trying to slaughter her crew.

Once the last of the escape pods are loose, T'ania proceeds to the next phase of her plan. If the rachni remain, then once they destroy the _Descending Tide_ they will simply move on to her crew before infesting the planet below them. No, they needed to be taken out immediately. But with a ship with no weapons and barely holding together, she has only one option left. It is a risky move with no margin for error, so she needs to plan things exactly. She uses the navigation computer to plot a rough course, but input the final controls manually; the navigation program will not allow her to do what she wants, and to work around it would require time and knowledge that she lacks.

T'ania sees several smaller vessels jettison from the main rachni ship. From the size of the enemy ship, she figures that they are not interceptors; they are probably escape pods of their own to try and establish a beachhead on the planet. She had hoped that she would have more time, time that her crew could use to get closer to the planet. But she must act now; if any rachni make it to the surface, then her crew and the natives are doomed. As she makes the final adjustments, she begins to pray.

"O Athame, goddess of fate, hear my call. Guide my feet so that I may reach my destination. Guide my hand so that I may strike down my foes. And…" Her finger hovers over the button that will seal her fate, her enemy in front of her and her comrades behind her. With one final, bracing breath, she finishes, "And guide my heart, so that if I fall, I shall find peace in your embrace."

Her hand lowers, and the _Descending Tide_ hurtles towards the enemy ship at over half the speed of light. As the two ships connect, the immense amounts of energy completely obliterates both vessels. The resulting explosion momentarily illuminates the sky of the planet below; the shockwave spreads out in all directions. The nearest pods are violently ripped apart, exposing the shocked crew to enough heat and radiation to kill them instantly. The more distant ones are knocked off course, making uncontrolled descents into the atmosphere. Those that are not shaken apart or burned up in descent will crash into the ocean or against the ground hard enough to render them as little more than scattered piles of scrap in a smoldering crater. The few lucky ones furthest away will be buffeted, but be able to correct themselves in time to make a controlled descent. It will be painful, but they will survive, and find themselves stepping out into an entirely new world. A world full of wonders and terrors in equal measure.

A world of monsters.


	2. Chapter 2

The _Desending Tide_ was part of a squadron meant to reinforce one of the fleets pushing into rachni territory, but along the way had run headfirst into a rachni flotilla. Although the two fleets were roughly equal in size, slightly favoring the asari, the rachni's near suicidal tactics allowed them to deal far greater damage than the asari. With more than half the squadron destroyed, the asari were forced to make a fighting retreat. With several systems within range of the mass relay, the bloodied remnants of the fleet scattered in the hope that it would spread any pursuers too thinly, allowing some of them to return to fortified space and push back the invaders before rescuing the stragglers. Unfortunately, the Descending Tide was so damaged that it only made two relay jumps before the stresses of FTL relay travel proved too great for it to bear. Thus the _Descending Tide_ finds itself in its current situation, a sinking ship desperately searching for land before its crew drowns.

Down in the crew quarters of the _Descending Tide_ , a young maintenance engineer named Alina M'ressa tosses and turns in her sleeping pod as she vainly tries to rest. Though her body is weak from exhaustion, her mind is unable to rest, filled with the images of her sisters-in-arms lying dead at their stations, or being packed up and tossed into rooms to be ignored like trash.

Klaxons blaring loudly startles Alina from her fitful slumber, causing her to jump and smack her head against the cover of her sleeping pod. As she rubs her forehead to soothe the soreness, the voice of her captain pours from the loudspeakers.

" _Attention, crew of the_ Descending Tide! _This is Captain T'ania. You are ordered to report immediately to your nearest escape pod. This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill! We are abandoning ship, report to your nearest escape pod immediately!_ "

Alina shoves the pod cover off and takes off in a sprint without bothering to step into her boots, joined by the other crew members roused from their slumber. As she runs, the ship shudders beneath her feet, causing her to stumble. Fortunately, the _Descending Tide_ is a small ship; Alina soon reaches the escape pods, where security personnel are guiding the panicking crew to the pods in a semi-orderly fashion, assisting the injured where necessary. She is hurriedly pushed into one of the pods and secured into a safety harness. Two other asari are already secured: one in casual clothes with an arm bound in a sling, the other wearing the violet starburst of the medical team and holding onto a cane, the name "Dehira" printed on her jacket.

"T'lena, stick with them!" One of the guards outside shouts to the one securing Alina. She nods in acceptance; after the other three are safely bound, she settles into the last remaining seat and fastens herself in. "Good luck and Goddess guide you!" the asari from outside shouts over the cacophony of sirens and panicking women before the pod door slams shut and the vessel is jettisoned. As the pod enters the void of space, the noise of sirens and explosions abruptly cease, as if the chaos they left behind has suddenly ceased to exist. The silence, broken only by the soft hum of the pod's internal mechanisms and the whispered prayers of the asari with the broken arm, hangs over them like a heavy blanket ready to smother them. For several minutes they wait in agonizing anticipation, uncertain if they will survive planetfall, or if the rachni will shoot them down, a swift death that they will never hear coming.

A great impact jostles the descending pod from the rear with a force that would have thrown the passengers about the cabin if they had not been secured. The crew is shaken, but otherwise unharmed, and the entire vessel begins to rumble around them as it enters the atmosphere. A jolt wrenches the passengers to one side as the pod's airbrakes deploy to slow its descent. It is quickly followed by a brief, loud screech as metal is violently torn from the outside.

"What was that?" the asari with the bound arm asks, close to hyperventilating in her panic.

"Ah crap, those were the airbrakes," T'sena groans. "Hold on tight, ladies! It's gonna be a bumpy ride!"

With a thunderous crash the pod strikes against the ground, the occupants deafened by the terrible screeching of metal dragging against earth. Several bone-rattling minutes later, it finally slows to a stop.

"Is everyone still alive?" the security guard asks; the others, battered and bruised from the descent, give weak groans of affirmation. Satisfied with the response, she disengages the harness holding her to her seat. Pain and disorientation causes her to stagger, but she soon regains her footing and assists the others in removing their restraints. Once free, none of them make any movement to stand up, bound by the pain currently coursing through their bodies from the rough landing.

"We can't stay here," the crippled nurse said after a few hours, leaning onto her cane to push herself to her feet. "Assuming the oxygen scrubbers haven't been damaged by the fall, we only have a few days until the CO2 levels get high enough to suffocate us. And that's if we don't cook to death first." Although many laywomen believed that space was a universally cold wasteland, the temperature can actually vary wildly depending on how close you are to an energy source like a star. While the escape pod is designed to protect its occupants from such hostile forces, it seems to the asari that some part of the pod was damaged from the crash, since in the few hours they had spent convalescing, the pod's interior temperature had become noticeably and uncomfortably warmer.

Once the remaining three are released and they regain their footing, T'lena reaches down to open a drawer hidden beneath the seats. Pulling out three white suits with matching helmets, she passes one to each of the underdressed crew members.

"Here, put these on," she tells them. Alina has no trouble donning her suit, but the two injured asari struggle with their suits until the two unharmed crew help them.

"Can you walk?" Alina asks Dehira when the nurse hisses in discomfort from placing pressure on her injured leg.

"It's fine," she says through clenched teeth as she continues to suit up. "I just twisted my ankle a few days ago, I'll be fine."

Unlike T'lena's combat armor, the emergency suits the others are wearing are little more than especially sturdy spacesuits; except for the helmet, they are made entirely from a flexible polymer weave, with its only protective measures being a sealed air supply and a weak kinetic barrier meant more to protect the wearer from random falling debris than bullets. They also lack hard points to secure weapons to, though that is a minor detail since the only weapons that they have are currently secured on T'lena's person.

"All right, stay behind me," T'lena says as she approaches the door, pistol drawn. She reaches out to press the door's release. She cries out in shock when bright sunlight shines through the doorway, momentarily blinding her. When the stars fade from her eyes, she blinks and mutters under her breath, "Crap."

Before her is a field of alabaster sand, marred by a single black line of scorched glass where the pod had dragged along the ground before stopping. T'lena carefully steps out, the brittle glass crunching beneath her boots as she takes in her surroundings. Behind her, in the direction that the pod was falling, is a tall, impassable cliff blocking the way. Ahead of her, tall spires of stone jut out from the the dunes in the distance, barely visible through the haze of the midday heat.

"All right, it's clear, come on out," T'lena says, beckoning the remaining three out. Wandering off into a desert is a risky proposition at the best of times, but without any way to replenish their meager stores of food and water, staying with the pod would spell certain doom for them. Alina and T'lena empty the pod of its remaining supplies; as the most able-bodied of the four, they carry the heavy jugs filled with water, while the nurse carries the rations and the one with the bound arm has a bag of equipment slung over one shoulder, including a transponder to alert them should a rescue crew find their abandoned escape pod. As the one with the best armor and only weapons, T'lena leads the party with Alina at the rear to support the nurse, whose cane provides poor support for her injured foot on the soft, constantly-shifting sand.

After many long, exhausting hours of trudging through the desert, the sun finally sets on the four, bringing a respite from the unforgiving sun.

"Let's camp here," T'lena says, stopping at a rock outcrop and dropping her pack with a thud. The night desert quickly grows cold, but with no wood nearby to make a fire, their only source of heat is a solar-powered hot plate normally used for camping. Cranking the cooking machine to its highest setting, the four asari huddled around the glowing coils for warmth.

"What are the chances of us catching anything if we take our helmets off?" Alina asks as Dehira pulls out some rations and cups. "Because I think I'm going to drown in my own sweat if I don't take this helmet off."

"Our chances are pretty low," the nurse replies as she opens a packet of rations, dropping a two-inch cube of compressed powder into four cups and filling them with water before placing them on the hot plate to warm. "Past experience has taught us that there aren't too many pathogens that can infect different species, so there's little reason to assume that it would not be the case here. And even in the unlikelihood of there being something that can affect us, most diseases come from consuming contaminated food or water, or being transmitted through a bite. I haven't detected any bugs, nor have I seen anything other than rocks and the occasional shriveled shrub, so I think we'll be fine."

Satisfied, Alina disengages her helmet's seals and pulls it off, taking in a deep breath and revelling in the cool desert air against her sweat-drenched skin. The others quickly follow her example. By now the water has come to a boil, dissolving the cubes into a dark broth. The four asari each take a cup and sip at the brew, Alina grimacing in distaste. The cubes are artificially-manufactured blends that contain all the calories and nutrients an asari needs to survive while also easily dissolving in hot water, allowing one to drink it through a straw should they be required to keep their helmet on. The resulting brew is both incredibly salty and rather bitter in taste unless heavily diluted; unfortunately, they cannot afford to use their water so frivolously, so they can only silently endure it.

"How's the arm, Meerla?" Dehira asks the asari with the broken arm.

"It's bearable for now," she says as she looks down at her wounded limb. The cast binding it was small enough for it to fit into the sleeve of the suit, but the movement still caused it to ache. "I'm not looking forward to later though, with no painkillers to keep it down."

"We might have something for that," Dehira says as she begins to rummage through the first-aid kit. "We'll have to ration it though, so you'll still be pretty uncomfortable, unfortunately." As she continued to search for medicine for her patient, Alina turned to T'lena.

"So why did you come with us?" she asked the security guard. "I thought security was supposed to be the last to leave during an evacuation?"

"Normally yes," she replies, sipping at her "soup" with a grimace. "However, there's an exception where, if two or more of the evacuating crew are injured so that they cannot defend themselves, one security personnel is allowed to accompany them for protection." Satisfied with the answer, Alina continues to sip at her now-tepid, bitter broth. Few more words are exchanged before they turn to sleep, T'lena taking the first watch.

For two more days they traverse the desert, with little more than rocks and the occasional cactus for company. Dehira's foot heals enough that she no longer requires her cane to move, but she is still slow, walking with a noticeable limp. At night some small talk is exchanged, like how Meerla was a fire control officer before her arm was injured during the Descending Tide's first encounter with the rachni, or how Alina's aunt was part of the team that developed the translation software that allows them to communicate with the various alien races that the asari have encountered without anyone involved actually learning a separate language. But as time passes by, their supplies and morale continues to dwindle. Even with strict rationing and their suits filtering their sweat and urine into potable water, the four asari drink over over two gallons of water each day, and the escape pod only had eight gallons stored away.

It is on the fourth day that they begin to feel hope again. The rolling dunes make way to flat, rocky ravines. Large, featherless bird-like creatures circle overhead, their shrill cries breaking the silence. Small bugs and reptiles crawl along the rock faces, uncaring of the alien beings walking among them. In addition to the plentiful cacti, dark, woody vines hang from the sides of the ravines, creating curtains of brambles. Small, green bushes also grow, hinting at a source of water nearby.

"Hey, I know you said that we can't get sick here, but can we still eat the food?" Meerla suddenly asks Dehira. The medical worker considers the question for several seconds.

"I don't see why not," she finally concludes. "However, I'd have to scan whatever we're planning on eating beforehand. Unlike bacterial infections, chemical toxins are pretty universal. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I was wondering if we could eat that," Meerla says as she points upward. Some of the vines, instead of creeping down the sides of the crevice that they are currently walking through, instead extend across it, with a single fist-sized fruit growing from the center of the vine. "It'd be a nice change of pace from the crap that we've been drinking lately."

"Maybe," Dehira says as she considers the high-hanging fruit. Turning to T'lena, she asks, "Think you can knock that down?"

"Not a problem; I could do with something other than soup too," the security guard says as she walks forward to stand directly underneath it. She draws her pistol and takes aim before firing a single shot, breaking the vine and knocking the fruit loose. The thunderous crack from the gun echoes through the ravine.

 _Thump_.

Catching the falling fruit with one hand, T'lena returns to the group and presents it to Dehira. The nurse activates her omni-tool, shrouding her hand and arm with light as she scans the fruit.

 _Thump_.

"Seems okay," she says as she peruses her readings. "I'm not detecting any toxins, but we clearly can't eat it like that; it's hard as a rock. Think you can try breaking it open so I can scan the inside?" Nodding, T'lena finds a seam in the fruit's shell to dig her fingers into and begins to pull. It offers more resistance than she is expecting; when she finally breaks it, rather than splitting in half, it explodes with a loud pop and with enough force to trigger her kinetic barriers.

 _Thump_.

"Well, wasn't expecting that," T'lena says, looking down at her hands in disappointment. Scattered around her feet are fragments of the fruit's hardened husk, along with what seemed to be its seeds. "So much for that idea. Shame, I was looking forward to having some fresh fruit tonight."

 _Thump_.

"Girls, do you hear that?" Alina asks, drawing everyone's attention to her. They stand in silence as they listen for what she hears.

 _Thump._

 _Thump._

 _Thump._

With each thud, the ground quakes beneath them, so soft that it is barely noticeable. And with each thud, it grows a little bit louder and the quakes a little bit harder. Too frequent and regular to be a random event, it has to be made by something. Something big, something heavy.

"Girls…?" Alina whispers in terror, pointing a shaking finger at a point behind them. They turn to see what she is pointing towards, and feel fear flowing through them as well.

Rounding the corner ahead of them is a hunched winged beast, almost as long as all four of their heights combined. Its scales a light tan to blend with the sand, its tail sports a large, studded knob of bone while its face bears two large, forward-facing horns and long tusks jutting from a mouthful of sharp teeth. As it approaches, each footstep shaking the earth, it regards them like one would a particularly repugnant insect.

"Girls," T'lena whispers as they slowly begin to back away. "I think we should-"

The beast rears up and gives a thunderous roar that they feel deep in their bones. Bound in its rage, the monster lowers its head and begins to charge at them.

" _RUN!_ "


	3. Chapter 3

" _Run!_ "

Alina, Meerla, and Dehira all drop their supplies and turn to run away, though in the latter's case, it is more of an aggressive hobble. As the monster charges towards them, T'lena draws her pistol and fires as quickly as she can pull the trigger. Eight times she fires before the gun disables itself from overheating; the shots strike against the enormous horns crowning the beast's head, leaving little more than barely visible pock marks. Desperate, T'lena holsters her gun and concentrates. A swirling corona of azure energy swirls around her before she throws it out in a biotic push. If the maneuver had been performed by an asari commando, a highly trained warrior with centuries of practice, then it would have been powerful enough to stop the beast, perhaps even pushed it back. T'lena is not a biotic commando by any means, so her push is not nearly as powerful, but it did have enough force to shift the monster's footing slightly, causing it to stumble and fall. As it falls face-first into the ground, its horns acts as a plow, digging into the earth and kicking up great clouds of dust. T'lena turns tail and sprints away, quickly catching up to the others as the monster skids to a stop.

"Quick, get up!" she shouts, pointing towards a curtain of vines hanging down along the ravine wall. They scale the vines to escape while the monster collects itself, Meerla struggling with only one arm to climb with. Having reoriented itself, the beast snarls and begins to stomp towards them once again. T'lena throws another biotic push at its face, but it barely staggers the now-prepared creature, yielding as much efficacy as a slap to the face. Knowing that her pistol is all but useless, T'lena reaches back to draw her shotgun. She braces herself for the pain that is sure to come; a weapon as powerful as her shotgun is normally fired with two hands, but with one holding onto the vines she is climbing, she has no choice. Pulling the trigger on her scattergun, several fragments of metal, each the size of a grain of sand, are shorn from a solid block and launched at supersonic speeds, impacting along the face and back of the approaching beast, tiny spurts of blood bursting from its body where it is hit. T'lena and the beast both cry out, the monster in anger from the shots peppering its body; T'lena from the pain coursing through her arm. Holstering her shotgun, T'lena grits her teeth and fights through the pain, clambering over the edge of the cliff.

"Keep running!" she shouts to her companions. The monster leaps up after them, the ground shaking under its mighty weight. T'lena draws her pistol and fires blindly behind her as she runs.

They run past a gnarled, dead tree and a field of cacti; their suits protect them from the sharp spines as they charge through the fragile desert plants. Despite the fear and desperation fueling them, the asari, already weakened from their previous ordeals, begin to feel their strength slipping away. The monster grows closer with each thunderous step; it soon approaches behind Dehira, who has fallen to the rear despite T'lena being the last to run due to her injury. With a bellow, the beast makes a sweeping headbutt, catching the nurse with it. At the last moment Dehira erects a biotic barrier, shrouding herself in a violet aura. This barrier, along with the meager shields that the suit provides, protects her from the worst of the monster's blow, which would have undoubtedly utterly broken her otherwise. The blow throws her up, sending her tumbling through the air like a stringless puppet, striking the ground some distance away.

"Shit!" T'lena curses when she sees Dehira strike the ground with a thud. Without turning around she shouts, "Keep going, I'll catch up!" while she charges the beast, drawing her shotgun. It was stupid of her, some might have said when observing her actions; if the beast is distracted with Dehira, then it will not pursue the other three. Logically the guard would agree with them, but at this moment she is not thinking logically. She has already lost so many colleagues - even some friends - when the _Descending Tide_ fell; for all she knew, the four of them are the only survivors. The only reason she is here now is to protect the others because they could not protect themselves, and she will be damned before she allows herself to fail in that duty. Three times she fires before she reaches the monster, tiny droplets of blood bursting out from the monster's flank with each shot. She holsters the weapon and, with a wrathful cry, she leaps into the air, a swirling azure aura enveloping her. She comes down on the monster's head, her biotics-augmented fist striking like a great hammer. The impact rattles the beast like no other blow she has given before, sending it staggering back. One of its horns, having been peppered by the gunfire, is riddled with minute cracks and faults. The impact of T'lena's strike stresses the faults to their breaking point, shattering the horn under her fist.

While the monster is stunned, T'lena picks up the fallen Dehira, draping the nurse's body across her shoulders. The nurse gives a soft groan of pain, but is otherwise limp in the guard's grip. T'lena runs back to where the others were; they are nowhere to be seen, but there is only one path forward, so T'lena goes on, trusting that she will catch up with them eventually. Unfortunately the path soon turns into a steep hill; she soon loses her footing and sends them both tumbling and sliding uncontrollably down the hill. They soon come to a stop at the bottom of the hill, their descent cushioned by a large puddle. T'lena pushes herself up and wipes away the mud splattered across her visor before hoisting the still limp Dehira.

"Please don't do that again," she groans softly as T'lena slings the nurse's limp body over her shoulders. T'lena sees two paths, one ahead and one to her left; she desperately looks around for a sign of where the other two may have gone.

"Psst, T'lena, over here!" She hears someone whisper to her right. She turns to see Meerla poking her head out of a small hole in the rock face, hidden by plant roots and barely large enough to crawl through. "C'mon, before that thing finds us again!" T'lena gently sets Dehira down, allowing Meerla to drag her through before falling onto her stomach and following. Past the hole is a small cave, perhaps 50 meters from one end to the other and half that in width, with another equally small hole in the far wall. The interior is bare apart from a few stubborn plants poking through the dirt. The trickle of running water can be heard faintly through the thick stone walls.

"Is she okay?" Alina asks as the three gather around their fallen colleague.

"No, I'm not," Dehira softly groans. "Help me get my helmet off before I throw up." Meerla, being the closest, releases the seals on Dehira's helmet and slides it off. She takes a deep breath before suddenly breaking into a violent coughing fit. Meerla and Alina quickly turn to her side in case she really did decide to vomit. As she coughs, Dehira begins to curl in on herself to try and alleviate the pain coursing through her body. T'lena and Meerla watch on, uncertain of how they can help her, while Alina fidgets nervously. "Oh goddess, it stinks in here," the nurse gags out once she finally stops coughing. Morbidly curious despite themselves, the other three remove their own helmets. They smell a faint, noxious smell reminiscent of rotten eggs. Already unpleasant for the three healthy asari, the stench is outright sickening for Dehira, who is already nauseous from her injuries.

The others slowly move Dehira so that she is sitting upright, pulling her to a nearby wall to prop her against. Stifling a pained groan, the nurse activates her omni-tool, enveloping her arm in layers of holographic constructs and casting an amber glow through the cavern. She presses an icon on her omni-tool's interface and slowly waves her hand over herself.

"How bad is it?" T'lena asks as Dehira looks over the results of her scan. By now Alina has slipped her helmet back on, relieving herself from the stench.

"Not great, but better than it could have been, considering the circumstances," Dehira replies. "Got a couple of broken ribs and more sprains and contusions than I can count. No concussion though, so that's something. It didn't show up on the scan, but based on this pain I'm feeling I probably have some internal bleeding as well."

"Why didn't it show up?" Meerla asks. "That sounds like a pretty big thing to miss."

"It's complicated," Dehira says in between short, shallow breaths, "and I don't remember all the technical details, but basically my omni-tool syncs with the suit's built-in life support monitor and shares information. The problem is that the LP on this suit is pretty basic, so it can only detect surface-level injuries; for anything deeper, I'd need a better suit or an MRI scanner."

"How bad are we talking here?" T'lena asks. Dehira gives a weak shrug.

"Hard to say," the nurse admits. "If we were someplace civilized, I could just get to a hospital and be fine. As it is, depending on how bad the bleeding is, it could be a few hours or a few days before I die. Either way, it's going to hurt." Alina retreats to the far end of the cave and begins to pace back and forth.

"Goddess, we're going to die here," she mutters to herself, wringing her hands nervously. "No food, no water, monsters all around us…."

"Alina, you need to calm down," Meerla says as she approaches the pacing asari.

"' _Calm down_?'" The engineer echoes in a harsh whisper. "How the hell can I _calm down_? In case you've forgotten, we're stranded on this backwater rock, the only one of us with more medical experience than putting on a band-aid is bleeding to death, and there's a monster out there looking for us. Hell, it's probably outside waiting for us to stick our heads out so it can eat us!" The four asari quickly turn their gaze to where they had entered the cave, expecting the beast to suddenly burst through the wall. After several tense seconds pass by without incident, they turn their attention back to the more immediate matter.

"Listen, I know you're scared, we all are," T'lena says as she approaches the panicking Alina and gently grasps her shoulders. "But panicking isn't going to help anybody. So I need you to take a deep breath and relax. Can you do that for me?" Alina gives a shaky nod and inhales deeply before slowly releasing it. Two more times she performs this exercise before she visibly relaxes.

"Okay, I'm good now," she says. T'lena gently pats her shoulder before releasing her.

"We can't stay here," the guard says as she grabs her helmet from the ground. "Even if that creature can't break through these walls, we're dead without any food or water, and Dehira needs medical attention badly."

"But what if that thing's still waiting for us?" Meerla asks as she fastens her helmet back on. "Wouldn't it be better to wait a while for it to lose interest first?"

"No," T'lena rejects, grabbing Dehira's discarded helmet, "that's a risk we can't take. You heard her; we don't know how bad her injuries are, but she may not have hours to spare. We need to move _now_."

"And where would we even be going?" Meerla pressed. "I know we're desperate right now, but what exactly is the plan here?"

"That water we're hearing has to be going somewhere," T'lena says as she pulls Dehira to her feet, one arm slung over her shoulders while the nurse leans into her side. "We can follow the stream to wherever it drains; there will probably be some locals settled nearby; we can try to ask them for help then."

"That's…" Idiotic is the first word that springs to mind for Meerla. Desperate is another one. "...a long shot," she finally decides. "Even _if_ we find any natives - and there's not guarantee that we will - we can't communicate with them. I had an ex-boyfriend I've melded with a few times, but not deeply enough that I could suddenly speak his language without a translator. Unless any of you girls have any experience?" When everyone shook their heads, she continued, "So that's one major obstacle right there. And that's if they're even friendly to begin with. I've got to be honest, this plan is hinging on a lot of 'ifs' for my liking."

"...I am aware that this plan is flawed, and desperate," T'lena reluctantly admits. "But do we have any other options?" No one answers. "I didn't think so. Let's escape through that far wall over there; even if the beast is still here, it probably won't be on that side." Once they reach the wall, T'lena passes the task of supporting Dehira to one of the others while she goes down on her stomach. Drawing her shotgun, she crawls through the hole, checking to see if anything is awaiting them. Seeing nothing but a mud bank and a shallow stream nearby, she calls the others out, pulling Dehira out by her arms and pulling her to her feet. The follow the path of the stream, going slowly so as to not slip in the mud and potentially injuring themselves further. The stream soon drains into a large marsh, explaining the noxious scent they smelled earlier. Unlike the desert they had crashed in, the marsh is filled with life. Bunches of grass and other plants sprout from the water and nearby mud flats, while birds and insects flit about through the air. Several meters away, a small herd of gigantic armored beasts with heavy shells and spiked tails are trodding away, occasionally sipping from the water or nibbling on the grasses. But the thing that catches their attention is the alien being approaching from a distant path.

While it is difficult for the asari to make out details from the distance it is at, the alien seems to have a face and build similar to a male quarian, except with a pale pink complexion instead of ashen gray, but with limbs more like those of an asari or batarian. He is wearing clothes made from both cloth and leather. Long, dark strands of hair hang from his head, which is covered by a wide-brimmed hat to protect him from the sun's rays. In one hand is a small box while the other holds a long rod for fishing.

"Hey!" Alina shouts while waving her arms, being careful not to run towards the stranger so as to not frighten or provoke him. "Over here! We need help!"

While unable to understand her words, the alien recognizes her distressed tone and rushes towards them.

" _Nē, anaa wa dōi shiasu ka?_ " the alien asks, looking at them in a mixture of confusion and concern. " _Wa'ashi wa sono yōa yoroi o mita ko'o ga nai. Anaa wa koo kara kie inai noesu ka?_ "

"I know you can't understand me, but please, our friend needs help," Alina says, pointing to the limp Dehira. "She's been hurt really badly. You need to help us."

The alien gives the injured asari a quick glance before nodded resolutely. He sets down his box and fishing rod to pull out an item from one of his numerous pockets. Loading it into a small crossbow made from bone mounted onto his forearm, he turns away from them and shoots into the air. After a few seconds, the object bursts into a bright green flare. A few minutes later, they hear the trundling of wooden wheels swiftly approaching them. Cresting the hill is a large wooden cart piled with hay and furs, being pulled by a trio of small, furred bipedal aliens. They halt at the coast of the marsh and begin to call to them, beckoning them over with shrill yowls. The five of them wade through the hip-deep waters of the marsh to get to the cart, T'lena holding the weakened Dehira in her arms so that she does not have to struggle through it. The taller alien gestures to the asari to lay Dehira down on the cart while he confers with the smaller beings in his incomprehensible language. T'lena gently lays Dehira down on the cart, placing her helmet beside her.

Finished with their conversation, the three smaller aliens begin to turn the cart around while the taller one approaches the three standing asari. He speaks to them and, while his words are lost to them, his gentle, reassuring tone eases some of the tension weighing on them. The three small aliens set forth, two pulling the cart from the front while one pushes from the back. Despite their diminutive size and great burden the aliens move with surprising swiftness; the three asari try to keep pace, but their exhaustion and weakened constitution from over three days of hard travel with minimal food means that they frequently fall behind.

They follow the cart up hills and into a mountainside, the trio of furred aliens navigating the narrow paths as if they had known them their whole lives. Sometime into their journey Dehira gives out a pained cry, causing them to stop. One of the aliens reaches into a sack hanging from the side of the cart and withdraws a bottle of pale green liquid. It makes to proffer the bottle when one of its companions stops it. The two argue for a minute before the first one slaps its face with its free hand. It reaches into the bag again to produce a bottle of water and an empty flask. It pours some of the green fluid into the empty bottle, filling it a quarter full, before filling the rest with water and shaking it. It offers the concoction to the asari and, through a series of gestures and pantomimes, conveys to them that it is medicine to ease Dehira's pain. Being the closest, Meerla takes the bottle and approaches Dehira.

"Here, drink this, it'll help," she says as she pulls the nurse into a sitting position and gently pours the medicine into her mouth. Even through her fatigue, she manages to slowly drink it down. "Feel better?"

"Yeah actually, I do," Dehira replies with surprise. "Whatever they gave me is pretty strong stuff. Didn't even taste that bad either. I'm really tired though; be nice to finally get some rest."

"Well, we're almost there." None of them actually knew how much farther it was to their destination, but it reassured the wounded asari nonetheless, who settled back down, in less pain and slightly higher spirits than before.

For hours they wind through the mountain paths, making only a few brief stops to eat. The aliens munch on strips of dried meat, some of which they offer to the asari. They chew slowly so as to not upset their stomachs, unaccustomed to solid food after so long. It is tough and gamey in taste, but after four days of eating nothing, it tastes heavenly to the asari. By the time they reach their destination, the sky is turning orange as the sun dips low into the horizon. Before them their path is barred by a large gate made of wood, reinforced with metal, bone, and animal hide. Even though the gate towers above them, the asari can see past it to see, of all things, a large sailing ship perched atop a mountain and split in two; between the halves, a torrent of water gushes from the mountainside. One of the aliens shouts to an unseen gatekeeper, prompting the gates to open with a mighty groan. The great doors slowly creak open, allowing them passage into this strange sanctuary.

At long last, they finally can feel safe.

* * *

Translation: Hey, are you guys okay? I've never seen armor like that before. You're not from around here, are you?

Let me know what you think.


	4. Chapter 4

The aliens push through the gap in the gates, not bothering to wait until they open completely. The asari follow close behind. The dirt trail soon changes into a heavy wooden flooring as they enter the city proper. The cart soons stops as the pathway becomes too narrow to support it. Two of the aliens begin to tip the cart as if they mean to simply throw the semi-conscious Dehira off like trash. T'lena makes to stop them when the third one - the same one that admonished the one who made the medicine before - stops them and begins to lecture them again. Suitably admonished, the first two settle the cart back down and reach underneath it. They pull out a simple stretcher, little more than a sheet of thick leather wrapped around two sturdy wooden rods, and carefully pull Dehira off the cart and onto it. One alien goes to either and, with another demonstration of strength disproportionate to their size, lifts the stretcher above their heads.

The third alien leads them deeper into the complex, past a building that echoes with the cacophonous crash of hammers on metal, and up a stairway that leads into a tunnel cut into the cliffside. As they go deeper into the tunnel, the sunlight pouring from the entrance is replaced by head-sized wicker baskets hanging from the ceiling, containing a bright, flickering light. They follow the path to its end, leading back to a structure jutting out from a different part of the mountain away from the main city. In the halls they find another of the tall aliens, a female this time. She looks similar to the one that the asari first encountered back in the marsh, with some differences: in addition to being of generally slighter build than the male, her long, tapered ears jutted outward from her head, her hands sport four digits instead of five, and her feet, instead of being flat like those of an asari or batarian, are stretched like those of a quarian so that only the toes touch the ground.

She is momentarily surprised at the asari's appearance before turning to address the leader of the trio. The smaller alien answers back in their incomprehensible language. The look of shock on her face quickly shifts to worry as she looks down at Dehira. With a curt word she turns and briskly marches onward, beckoning them to follow her. She quickly leads them to what seems to be an operating theater with a single table at the center of the room illuminated by light pouring from a skylight directly above, along with several small tables to place tools on and a few assistants.

The woman begins barking orders as she steps to a basin to wash herself. One of the others rushes to her side to assist her while the other two lift Dehira from the stretcher onto the table. One of them grabs a pair of stout scissors from a nearby table to try and cut her suit off, but the ceramo-polymer weave resists the shears' attempts to break it.

"Help them get my suit off," the nurse says. Alina, being the closest, steps up to her and releases the seals on the suit, carefully helping her peel the suit off. Once it is removed, the assistant wielding the shears nudges Alina aside and quickly slices through Dehira's clothes without any concern for her modesty. She shivers at the sudden chill, and the other asari automatically avert their gazes from their now bare comrade, but the two assistants ignore Dehira's nudity in favor of assessing any wounds she may have, including the large indigo bruise along her abdomen. The lead woman returns along with the first assistant, prompting the other two to leave Dehira's side to suit up themselves. The doctor and her assistant are clad in white robes, under which the asari see heavy leather coverings. Their faces are concealed behind pointed, bird-like masks with crimson lenses for eyes. Not an inch of skin can be seen on either of them. As the other two assistants approach, now donning identical garb, the three smaller aliens quickly usher the unharmed asari out of the room, shutting the door behind them. As they depart, they see the two of the assistants gently wiping Dehira's body with rags that reek strongly of alcohol while the third is tapping dried leaves into a censer.

The sextet retrace their steps back to the main city. The apparent leader of the aliens speaks to its two comrades, who then take off in two different directions. The third leads the asari down a nearby flight of stairs and into what seems like a housing area. The alien leads them into a room near the stairs. The room is spartan in appearance, with little more than four bunk beds and a single large chest to furnish it. Once they are all inside, it pats one of the mattresses in invitation before it scampers past them, shutting the door behind it. Several moments pass with only the sound of rushing water and distant crowds filling the air.

"Goddess," Meerla sighs as she flops down onto one of the bunks, the madness of the day finally catching up to her. "I can't believe we actually made it."

"Do you think Dehira will make it?" Alina asks as she sits down next to Meerla in a more reserved fashion. "That bruise on her stomach looked pretty bad."

"I don't know," T'lena says while sitting down on the opposite bunk. "But I imagine that with having to live with monsters like that around, these people would know how to treat injuries from them. We'll just have to wait and hope; it's not like we have any other choice."

"Yeah, but what if they can't help her?" Alina asks while removing her helmet. "I remember cracking open a xeno-anatomy book when I was in school and, except for the hanar, everybody had their major guts in roughly the same places, minus some minor differences. These aliens may look like us, but what if they have totally different insides and end up making her worse?" A heavy silence hangs in the air as they consider her words.

"...Like I said, we don't have any other choice," T'lena finally says. "None of us have the equipment or training to treat her ourselves."

Further discussion is interrupted by a sharp knocking on their door. Frowning in confusion, T'lena gets up and opens the door. Standing at the door is the alien that led them there with a pile of folded clothes in its arms. Behind it are several other members of its species wearing aprons and white, puffy hats, holding dome-covered platters above their heads with mitt-covered paws. T'lena steps aside to allow them entry. The lead alien steps in first, setting the clothes on one of the beds while six more - three carrying platters and the other three carrying simple folding tables and trays holding several enormous mugs full of liquid - follow. The tables are set and the trays set on top of them. With a dramatic flourish the domes are whipped off, revealing the tantalizing contents hidden within.

The first platter has a whole roasted fowl as its centerpiece with skin crisp and golden, sprinkled with crumbled herbs. A wooden block is impaled with several long skewers sporting chunks of grilled meat and vegetables, each piece large enough to fill an asari's palm. Next to it, a large wooden bowl containing thin strips of steak, grilled, sliced, and mixed with stir-fried vegetables is set beside a plate piled high with white flatbread. A ceramic bowl contains a red, spicy broth, within which they can see boiled vegetables and thin, white spongy tripe. A savory custard tart with bits of cured meat and vegetables mixed within sits beside a small plate of very thin raw steaks, artfully arranged in a circle and garnished with herbs and shavings of cheese.

The second platter is equally enticing. In the center is a large red fish, grilled to perfection and segmented into individual fillets. Next to it is a plate piled with long, shelled legs plucked from several large crabs. Another board impaled by skewers is present, this time bearing juicy, golden prawns. A mound of rings large enough to fit their hands through, breaded and deep fried, lie atop a bed of shredded greens and accompanied by a small bowl of thick, red sauce. A tray lined with fillets from a small fish soaked in oil sits next to another plate of raw meat, this time a dark red fish, again sliced thin and arranged in a circular pattern, sitting on a bed of shredded root vegetables and accompanied by a small pat of green paste and a saucer of black, pungent sauce.

The third platter, unlike its companions, features strictly vegetarian fare. The main dish is a large salad composed of shredded leaves mixed with diced raw vegetables. It is accompanied by a mixture of roasted squash and root vegetables, along with a spicy bean stew. Another, smaller salad composed of sliced cactus pads and chopped fruit from the same cactus sits next to a plate of sliced fruit with deep red flesh and warm to the touch.

The asari's troubles are momentarily forgotten as the mixture of aromas tickles their noses and their mouths begin to water. Pleased by their reaction, the various servers bow out and retreat from the room. The last alien says something to them before following suit, leaving them alone with their feast. Now that they are alone, the asari have to resist the urge to descend on the food like a pack of starving animals; though the food is enticing, eating too quickly after having so little solid food over the past few days would only result in more troubles for them, so they partake slowly. They notice that their servers had either forgotten or neglected to bring utensils with them, so without any way of knowing where to find them and retrieve some, they have no choice but to pick at the food with their fingers. Meerla struggles the most with one arm still bound in a sling, while T'lena descends upon the smorgasbord with unladylike fervor, starving from the use of her biotics earlier.

Although they are famished and the food is delectable, it soon becomes apparent that there is far too much for them to eat. Though not as widely known as their long lives and accompanying wisdom, or their ability to make with any species, one fact about the asari is that they are some of the biggest eaters in the galaxy. Biotics are especially taxing on a person's metabolism, especially those of soldiers or athletes who use them extensively, so an asari will typically eat more than a quarian or batarian of similar body size. The only sophont on the Citadel that eats more food per day than an asari are the elcor, who have the excuse of possessing almost twice as much body mass on average. Still, even after stuffing themselves to the point where they cannot take another bite, more than half of the provided food remains.

"It's a shame that there's no refrigerator here," Meerla sighs as she pats her full stomach. "We could live off this meal for a couple of days if we could preserve it." Beside her Alina lies collapsed on the bed, groaning in discomfort from an overfilled stomach.

"What I want to know is why they brought so much food in the first place," she says. "Did they really think we could eat all that?"

"Ehh, probably not," Meerla replies with a shrug. "They probably didn't know what we could eat, so they decided to bring us a little bit of everything. A bit wasteful, but it makes sense. What do you think, T'lena?" They looked up to see the soldier staring off into the distance, her gaze focusing on a sight unseen by either observer. "Uhh, T'lena? You still with us?" This knocks T'lena out of her reverie. "You okay there? You seemed kind of out of it for a minute there."

"Sorry," T'lena says while shaking her head. "Just got lost in my thoughts for a bit. Memories of home, is all; don't worry about it."

"Speaking of home, what do we do now?" Alina asks as she pulls herself to a seated position. "We lost the transponder when we were being chased by that...thing...and just from the quick glimpse we got, I doubt that that the people here have the tech level necessary to build their own spacecraft."

"There's also the language barrier to contend with" T'lena says. "Alina, you said that your aunt worked on the translation software on our omni-tools, do you think you can get it to translate for us?" Alina grits her teeth in annoyance.

"Okay one, just because my aunt worked on it doesn't mean I can do anything with it; most of the stuff I know about it comes from listening to her talk about her work. Second, from what she's said, there's hundreds of people maintaining it at all times to keep it smooth and up-to-date. It's got some pretty potent capabilities, but at the end of the day it's just a more robust version of those free translator apps you can find on the extranet. I know that there's a feature somewhere that allows you to match unknown words with known ones, and that it can do it automatically, but unless someone sits down and reads a dictionary to us, it would take weeks of passive observation before it would be considered 'fluent.'" At the last word, Alina raises her hands and curls her two fingers down to signal her sarcasm. "And that's just for a straight, word-to-word translation, never mind how their grammar rules might be different from ours. Once you factor in dialects, slang, and whatever other idiosyncrasies that their language might have, and it'd be easier for us to just learn to speak it ourselves instead of trying to get the machine to do it for us."

Further discussion is interrupted by a knock on their door. T'lena opens it to find their guide from before, along with several more of the apron-clad aliens. When they see the immense quantity of food remaining, they slowly take off their hats, their large black eyes appearing ready to burst into tears.

"Oh no, no, it's okay," Meerla quickly said to them. "It's…" remembering that they cannot understand her, she changes tactics. "Very good! Mmm," she says, exaggeratedly rubbing her stomach in contentment while nodding. "But too big!" She spreads her arms wide while shaking her head. "Next time, smaller please." She pinches her thumb and forefinger until they are only an inch apart. It takes a moment for the aliens to interpret her pantomimes, but once they do, their mood instantly lifts. Nodding in understanding, they descend upon the leftovers and sweep it away in the blink of an eye, leaving no evidence that it was ever there.

Once they leave, the guide alien beckons the asari to follow him. He leads them down a hallway to what seems to be a public bathing area, currently unoccupied. They see numerous individual stalls that, while cruder than what they are used to, are unmistakably toilets. Further into the room they see more stalls with water pouring from spouts near the ceiling; along one wall is a series of shelves for people to place their belongings while they bathe. Through the walls they can hear the thunderous rumble of the waterfall, the probable source of the water there.

Now that they have been shown how to reach the bathing facilities, the asari are led back to their room where they are left alone for the rest of the day. The clothes that they were provided earlier are loose and rough on their skin, but a welcome change from the suits that they had been wearing continuously for the past few days.

A routine is quickly established over the next few days. Three times a day one of the apron-clad aliens will appear with a tray of food - with much smaller portions than the first time, to everyone's relief. In the afternoon the being that had first guided them would lead them to a lookout point that overlooks the entire town, where they sit and bask in the sun for a couple of hours before they are led back to their room. There they can see the townspeople scurrying around like ants in the distance, talking and shopping and going about their lives, oblivious or unconcerned about the monsters that lurk beyond their borders. It is a blissful serenity that the asari cannot help but feel a hint of envy towards.

It is also during these brief excursions that they learn that there are not two, but three sapient species living on the planet; the doctor that they had initially assumed was the female of the taller species is actually part of a separate, similar race to the angler that they had first encountered. Both sexes of the species look incredibly similar to each other besides their obvious morphological differences, to such a degree that from a distance it is almost impossible to tell the two apart at a glance. They encounter a few during their daily walks, or during their visits to the bathing facilities. As members of a polity consisting of multiple species, the asari are used to the befuddled stares that they receive from the locals, although it is strange for them to be seeing looks normally only present on small children to be sported by adults. The natives, for their part, apart from the stares politely ignore the asari as they go about their business.

Their nights on the other hand are not so peaceful. Their minds are plagued by nightmares, giving them little opportunity for sleep. Dreams of being chased by the monster from the desert, of it catching them and brutally eating them. Of other, formless yet equally terrifying beasts lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce upon them. As the days pass by without word of Dehira's condition, not even being taken to visit her, the terrors populating their nightmares turn from the monsters of the wastes to their mysterious hosts. Are they hiding Dehira? Experimenting on her? Did she even survive the operation? And what are their intentions for the rest of them? Though their hosts have been cordial enough thus far, and they have not technically been barred from going anywhere, the inability to communicate with anyone has effectively left them restricted to what few places that they have been led to before; their peaceful abode quickly feeling like a prison with no bars.

Almost a week passes before there is a change to their routine. A knock on the door reveals their guide waiting for them once more.

"Excuse me, misses, but the Commeownder wishes to see you now," it says to them in a high, nasal voice. For a moment none of the asari respond as they process what they have just heard.

"Wait a second, you can understand us? How is that possible?" Meerla demands, incredulity showing on her face.

"We felynes have always been good at picking up languages, miss," the alien - felyne - says. "It took a few days, but I managed to pick up enough to be able to talk to you. And now that we can commeownicate, our leader wants to speak with you."

"Well, now that we can understand each other, we have a few questions of our own," T'lena says, crossing her arms. "For starters, how is our colleague faring? It's been a week, and we don't even know if she's still alive. We're not doing anything for you until we know that she's okay."

"Your friend's alive, but last I heard she was still rather sick," the felyne says with a shrug. "From what I heard, the opurration had some difficulties."

"Prove it. Take us to her, then we'll talk to your commander." T'lena glares down at the diminutive alien, who is glaring back at her, displeased by her defiance. After staring each other down for several tense seconds, the felyne looks away and nods in acquiescence.

"All right, I'll take you," it says. It warns them, "But if the doctor turns us away, I can't do anything about it."

"Fair enough." All three of the asari have had to visit the medical ward at least once in their military careers, and they knew from experience that there, the medical officer in charge outranks _everyone_ , especially with an injury as bad as Dehira's. With a wave of its paw it leads them back to where they had first brought Dehira a week before.

"So now that we can understand each other, what should we call you?" Meerla asks.

"You can call me Purrcy, miss," the felyne replies. Once they reach the hospital Purrcy speaks to one of the workers in his native language, who guides them to where Dehira is being held. There they see her lying unconscious in a bed, her azure skin sporting a sickly pallor. A mask is strapped to her face, connected to a hose that leads to a machine pumping air into her mouth. There are no wires running out of it, nor anywhere for it to plug into, but they hear a faint rhythmic ticking under the hissing of air being pushed in and out; run by a clockwork mechanism perhaps?

"How bad is she?" Alina asks. Purrcy asks a nearby attendant, who looks over clipboard attached to the end of Dehira's bed. After listening to the attendant's response, Purrcy turns to the asari.

"He says that your friend survived the opurration, but she lost a lot of blood," he says. "Since they don't have any way to give her more, they've been keeping her here to recover. They've been feeding her broth mixed with vitalily honey to keep her fed and to help with the healing."

Satisfied that their colleague is alive, if not exactly well, they give a quick prayer for her speedy recovery before following Purrcy to where they will be meeting the Commander, whomever they may be. The felyne leads them to an elevator connected to a large chain, continuously driven by the force of the waterfall. They descend to the lower level, where they are close to a bustling bazaar. Purrcy leads them around the marketplace, ignoring the gawking onlookers, before leading them to a doorway obscured by a curtain.

"Wait here," Purrcy says before stepping inside. A few moments later he emerges, beckoning them in. "Come on in, the Commeownder will see you now."


	5. Chapter 5

The Commander sighs as he sorts through the latest stack of papers to cross his desk. Three days. Three days have passed since there was an explosion in the sky that briefly lit the night sky like it was midday, followed by several streaks of fire racing across the sky. Some had faded out, whatever they were burning up midway to planetfall, while others had descended beyond the horizon, but one of the objects had fallen nearby, making a terrible shriek as it blazed across the sky. Based on the direction of its descent and the sound of the impact once it had finally struck the earth, it had been deduced that the object had landed somewhere within the Wildspire Wastes. Fortunately, the desert was home to few beyond the researchers studying the wildlife there, so there was little chance of someone being hurt by the impact.

Many of the more excitable researchers had wanted to immediately send a Hunter team to scout the impact site while a more formal expedition would be arranged; the more level-headed scholars pointed out that such a startling occurrence would have likely agitated the local wildlife, a hypothesis that the Commander supported. An agitated beast is an unpredictable one, which in turn means that they are more dangerous than normal. So the Commander had placed a brief moratorium on hunts or expeditions, allowing only passive observation of any fauna that happened to wander near the research camps.

To his relief, the latest reports showed that the effects of the meteor's descent had been less than they initially feared. The monsters from the Coral Highlands and the Elder's Recess had barely been perturbed by the event, while the inhabitants of the Rotten Vale had not even noticed it at all, the local Grimalkyne only realizing that it had taken place when the topside tribes had asked them about it. The reports from the Ancient Forest and the Wastes were more like what they had been expecting, with the bright light and noise from the descent frightening the animals, but after a few days had passed with no apparent threat, their behavior quickly began to normalize. With the worst of the danger apparently passed, the Commander authorized the resuming of regular Hunter activities, as well as commissioning an investigation into the crash. It was a low-risk, low-pay bounty that was strictly for reconnaissance work, with specific mention that if there was a strong or unknown monster lurking at the crash site, for the Hunter to abort the mission and return to report. The bounty had been quickly snatched up and last he heard, the team in question was having a traditional pre-hunt meal at the canteen before departing.

The names of the team that had accepted the bounty gives the Commander a tingle of recognition. He pushes himself up from his chair, a brief, sharp breath the only sign of his discomfort towards the movement. He mentally curses himself for his weakness; even after over a year, he remains unused to his injury. He grabs a cane propped against his desk and walks towards a nearby shelf, his footsteps alternating with the heavy thud of an artificial leg. He grabs one of the books on the shelf and flips through it, quickly finding what he is looking for.

The two older Hunters on the team came in from the Old World, veterans with numerous Elder Dragon kills to their names, including a Kushala Daora and an Alatreon. The two Hunters came in shortly after the New World became open to travelers and they, along with their respective Palico assistants, quickly made a name for themselves hunting monsters and gathering supplies in the Elder's Recess, where some of the most powerful monsters on the continent dwelled. They operated as such for several years until one of the felynes, feeling their age and injuries catching up to them, had retired. The team continued their operations, albeit more cautiously to account for their reduced manpower, until a few months ago when they brought a young, new Hunter under their wing. Since then, they have been mostly operating within the Ancient Forest and the Wildspire Wastes to train their new recruit.

Seeing that the task is in capable hands, the Commander limps back towards his desk and returns his attention to the documents awaiting his perusal. When he picks up the first form his face quickly twists into a scowl at its contents, his mood already souring. Mentally wishing the Hunters luck, he continues his work, ignoring the twinge of phantom pain where his leg used to be.

Blue hairless women.

That had not been what the Commander was expecting the fallen star to be. A regular meteorite or a monster like Xeno'jiiva perhaps, but not a quartet of women wearing clothes completely unlike anything that anyone had seen before. The Commander mentally conceded that it is _possible_ that they are a previously-undiscovered native species; had they been discovered deeper within the continent, it is a possibility that the Commander would put more credence towards. But they had been discovered in the Wastes, where the Research Commission has had a presence for decades now, and from the general direction of where the fallen star had descended. It is more likely that they are somehow connected to the star itself, if not directly related to it.

But more concerning at the moment is the fact that one of them was quite badly injured. The felynes responsible for monitoring Hunter squads in the field and evacuating them if necessary did an admirable job bringing them to the medical ward despite the apparent language barrier. Last he had heard, the unharmed women had been sequestered into one of the dormitories that are used to house visitors and provided with food, leaving them lost and confused but otherwise as comfortable as they could manage on such short notice. Setting aside that notion for the moment, the Commander turns his attention to the wyverian woman sitting before him.

"How's our patient faring, Doctor?" he asks her.

"She is stable, for the moment at least," she replies. "She lost a lot of blood, and we don't exactly keep stocks of alien blood on hand, so she's going to have to replenish it naturally. We're doing our best to feed her fluids and oxygen, but with as much blood as she's lost, there can easily be complications. She's going to have a long, difficult recovery ahead of her, assuming she doesn't get sick and die in the meantime."

"I see," the Commander says. "Is there anything noteworthy you can tell from a medical standpoint?"

"Not particularly," the Doctor answers. "I was mostly concerned with fixing the wound, so I didn't pay much attention to things outside of that, but from what I noticed, their internal structure seems remarkably similar to our own, obvious differences in appearance aside. I did notice some growths on her nerves, but again, I wasn't looking too hard. If she had expired on the table, I could have performed an autopsy and gotten a more detailed look, but that's obviously not possible now. That being said, I collected as much blood as I could. Some of her ribs had been broken as well, so I collected a few bone fragments as well before I sutured her back up. I've sent them off to the biology team for testing."

"Excellent work. Do you have any idea as to what could have caused those injuries?" The Commander asks her.

"Not particularly," the Doctor says with a shake of her head. "There was a lot of blunt trauma, but no claw marks on her, so I doubt that she was mauled by anything. From the reports I've heard about where they came from, I'd say that they had an encounter with a barroth, or maybe Raggard's little _pet_ ," she continues with a scoff; one of the Hunters investigating the fallen star had taken a liking to a juvenile diablos living in the Wastes, making him notable among the Hunter ranks. "But that thing's barely a year old. Getting hit by that thing would likely leave a bruise, maybe even crack a bone or two, but a diablos that young shouldn't be able to cause wounds this grievous."

"I see," the Commander says as he shifts in his seat, brow tight with concern. "I don't recall receiving any reports about a barroth or adult diablos in the area, but they could have wandered in during our holding period. Raggard and his team are out investigating the fallen star now; when they return I'll ask them if they've seen anything else unusual. In the meantime, I'll make a note for other Hunters to be cautious if they take jobs in the Wastes. Is there anything else that needs to be addressed?"

When the Doctor shakes her head, the Commander thanks and dismisses her before returning his thoughts to his village's new guests. Unfortunately, there is little that he can do for them at the moment due to the inability to communicate with them. He assigned one of the felynes that discovered them to act as their caretaker, feeding them and keeping them as comfortable as they reasonably can while also keeping them out of the way. He had already made a village-wide announcement informing the citizens of the newcomers and an order to not bother them for now, but the sort of people that enter the Research Commission's employ are always eager to look and poke at the novel, so having them wandering about in public would cause an unnecessary stir. He also tasked the felyne - Percy, he recalls - with listening in on the aliens' conversations to try and learn their language. The diminutive creatures have always had a prodigious knack for learning new languages, able to communicate with the locals of the New World after a few days of study when their larger companions had been studying the language for months or years without success.

Percy keeps the Commander apprised of the situation. The three alien women are comfortable, but are growing increasingly agitated the longer they remain confined. The fourth, while stable, is showing little improvement, still unable to be roused from her deep sleep. The team investigating the fallen star still has yet to return, although the Commander is unsurprised by this; even with a general heading, there is still a great deal of desert to search, assuming a sandstorm has not buried their target entirely.

After a week, Percy reports that he is fluent enough with the aliens' language that he is willing to attempt communication. The Commander authorizes the felyne to initiate contact with the aliens and to bring them to him; they have been stewing with their questions for a week now due to their inability to speak to one another, it is only polite to answer them now.

"Commeownder, the visitors are here," Percy says when he returns.

"Very good. Bring them in, please." The lynian nods and departs while he pushes himself to his feet. Percy soon returns with the three alien visitors, who seem to have traded the strange all-encompassing suits that they wore before with the more recognisable clothes that he had arranged to be provided to them. He watches them with keen eyes. Hunters learn early in their careers to watch closely for the smallest signs in a monster's behavior to most effectively track and fight them, and the same holds true for people as well. Already he can see that two of them are nervous upon entering, their gazes flitting back and forth in search of hidden threats while quietly deferring to their leader. She holds herself with more confidence, her back straight and her gaze forward, but he can see her eyes twitching in unease as well. He recalls the reports he read of the items that she alone was carrying, things that seemed similar in shape to a bowgun, except far smaller than any anyone had ever seen before. The Commander surmises that the leader is a warrior of some sort, but not one who is used to leading a team. Perhaps their fallen colleague is their regular leader?

"Greetings, strangers," he says with a smile, being careful not to show his teeth; many animals find bared teeth to be a threat, and it would be prudent to proceed with caution with these strangers. "This is rather late in coming, but as the Commander of this humble village, I would like to formally welcome you to Astera. Please have a seat," he continues with a gesture to the three chairs arranged in front of his desk. Percy translates his words for the women, who after a second's consideration, take the offered seats. Settling into his own chair, he continues, "Now, I have been told that you've been somewhat distressed recently. I apologize for that; it was not our intention to alarm you. However, I'm sure you can understand that the appearance of someone as...memorable as yourselves is not an everyday occurrence here, so we were caught off-guard." Percy relays his words to the visitors, the leader of whom flinches with a slight expression of guilt. She replies to the Commander in her strange, lyrical language, before turning to Percy and speaking further to him.

"She says she understands your purrsition, Commander," the felyne says. A rather short response considering the length of her words, the Commander notes. A personal altercation between the aliens and the felyne perhaps? He may ask Percy about it in private later but for now, he has more important matters to address.

"I'm glad that we've cleared that up. Now, I'm sure you have some questions, and I would be happy to answer them as best I can, but first I have a few questions of my own. Last week a star fell in the desert, and a few days later you emerge from the direction it came from. Did you have anything to do with it?" he asks. Percy relays the question to the aliens. The lead woman furrows her brow in confusion for a moment while she ponders the question. Her face lights up in realization before she responds. This time it is Percy's turn to be confused, as he asks her something again, which the alien winces before replying to. The other two, either in deference to their appointed leader or simply having nothing to contribute, remain silent, fidgeting in their seats while surreptitiously taking in their surroundings.

"She says that the falling star was a lifeboat, sir," Percy says. The Commander is surprised by that answer; he has had the misfortune of seeing airships go down in the past, but never had they been quite so spectacular as the falling star. And if the falling star was indeed a lifeboat, then that means that it had to have come from a larger ship.

"A lifeboat? So you came from a ship then. Where did you come from?" he asked.

His words are translated and the lead woman hesitates, clearly putting great thought into her words. Eventually she replies, slowly and in a tone that suggests that she does not fully expect to be believed.

"She says that she comes from beyond the stars, Commeownder," Percy translates. A ludicrous notion that he would not have entertained in his younger years, but that was before he had encountered the Xeno'jiiva, a strange beast that came to the world on a falling star centuries ago. If one such being had fallen from the skies, then would it not be possible for others to come from there as well?

"A bold claim," he says, his face betraying no emotion, "but a bold claim requires bold evidence. Do you have any proof to support your words?" Percy translates his words and after a moment, the lead alien nods. She raises her arm and, to the Commander's surprise, it becomes wreathed in a gauntlet of shaped light. From her wrist an image emerges of a sphere slightly larger than his fist. It is covered in splotches of blue and green, with wisps of white overlaying it. The shapes match no map that the Commander has ever seen. The woman speaks, Percy relaying her words soon after.

"She says that this is Thessia, the world where her people were born from," the felyne says. With a wave of her free hand, the image changes to a metal construct, a ring surrounded by five arms splayed out like a seastar. Tiny vessels buzz around it like flies circling a carcass. More words. "This is the Citadel, the seat of her government."

She continues to speak, weaving a tale of a union between her people, the asari, and another alien race called salarians, an alliance that spans dozens of planets, each as large as diverse as his own. She speaks of how they seek to bring peace and unity to all worlds, mentioning the numerous other species that they have brought under their wing. As she speaks, the images keep changing, showing enormous ships unlike any the Commander has ever seen, floating between the stars as if they were as light as clouds. Glimmering towers of steel and glass stretching high enough to touch the sky and far enough to reach to horizon. And images of people, each one as unique and peculiar as the last, living together, greeting each other like kin. It reminds the Commander somewhat of the Hunter's Guild and its union between humans, wyverians, and felynes, along with more tenuous alliances with other, less sociable races, like the gajalaka pygmies that populate this land, or the mountain dwelling troverians of the Old World, except much greater in scale.

It is a wonderful image, but as a former Hunter, the Commander knows that there is often danger lurking beneath the beautiful things. There is a question he has been yearning to ask of the asari since they arrived, but he forces himself to wait. It will likely distress his guests, and speaking of their society seems to be putting them at ease, so he patiently listens to their story and waits for the opportune moment. Finally they seem to reach a break in their recounting, and the Commander speaks.

"Thank you for sharing that with me," he says to them, his face settling into a grim visage. "I am certain that there are many here that would love to speak to you about your civilization in greater detail, but there is a more pressing matter that must be addressed. You say that you came to this land in a lifeboat, which means that you had to evacuate your main ship. What was it that you were fleeing from, and will it present a threat to us?" As he had predicted, all feeling of good cheer flees from the asari's faces immediately, being replaced with unadulterated dread. After taking a moment to confer privately with themselves, the asari reluctantly tell the Commander of the rachni, a race of implacable insects that spread like wildfire and can live in almost any environment, making them incredibly difficult to eliminate.

"Their captain managed to destroy the rachni's ship by ramming it with their own," Percy says. "She says to pray that no others find this system, for if they establish a foothold here, then our world will be all but lost." The Commander acknowledges their words with a grave nod of his head. He reaches into his desk to produce a pen and a sheet of parchment.

"I'll need you to describe these rachni," he says to them, pen poised to take notes. "If these things are as dangerous as you say, then we'll need to know what they look like and what their capabilities are. Spare no details."

The reluctantly relay what they know to him, though having not yet encountered them personally before, their information is sparse and second-hand. They claim that the bulk of the rachni's forces are twofold: Small, arm-length bugs that swarm their victims before exploding in a shower of caustic acid, and man-sized insects that can spit acid or impale a person with spiked tendrils. There also exist queens that birth and lead the troops, but they have rarely been seen, so little is known about them save for their ability to direct their armies deep within space while they remain safely ensconced deep underground on worlds too inhospitable for their foes to live on.

As he carefully writes down the asari's descriptions, he cannot help but feel slightly disappointed at what he hears. While the exploding acid bugs could be troublesome for those without proper gear, overall they do not seem overly impressive compared to some of the other neopterons or carapaceons that he has seen or heard of. He quickly stamps out these thoughts; there is no beast more dangerous than a Hunter's own arrogance, and for these rachni to threaten a people so much more advanced than his own, there must be something to them that he is failing to grasp.

"Thank you," he says to them when they finish. "I will ensure that this information is distributed right away. Now, a couple more questions before I let you go. I know that you aren't here intentionally, but now that you _are_ here, what do you plan on doing? Will your people be coming to retrieve you?" The lead asari furrows her brow in a concerned frown as she considers the question.

"They don't know," Percy translates for them. "They left a message saying where they were before they landed here, but it could be weeks or meownths before anyone receives it. And with the war, they may just assume that everyone died and not come at all."

"I see," the Commander says, feeling a pang of sympathy for the alien women. As a leader he has on occasion had to deem a missing person as presumed dead even without a body if they were lost in a place too dangerous to recover them; the idea of being written off and left forever separated from everything that they have ever known and loved must be a bitter pill for them to swallow. "I hope your people come for you, but as long as you don't cause any trouble you're welcome to stay here until then. I think you'll find us to be a friendly bunch here, and it's reasonably safe as long as you don't stray too far from the town walls." The asari give a polite, but uncertain smile at the offer. "One last question before I let you go, and this is as much out of personal curiosity as it is official business. What would happen if your people _do_ show up here?" The asari briefly confer with each other, their chatter interspersed with frowns and confused shrugs, before they address their answer to Percy.

"They don't know," the felyne translates. "None of them know of their people meeting anyone that was not at a similar level to them. They guess that if they had found us peacefully, then they would have left a device in the sky to watch us from afar so that they can observe us without scaring anybody, and wait until we reached the skies ourselves before meeting us." The Commander nods in understanding. Some animals are quite skittish, and Hunters often have to observe them from afar with binoculars so that they can formulate a plan; it is the same principle on a much larger scale. "But with how things are now, they are not certain. They think that there might be a blockade stationed here to protect us from invasion, or maybe a relocation effort to rescue us from the meownsters here." The Commander internally bristled at the insinuation that they needed to be rescued, but kept his peace.

"I'm sure that there are many here and elsewhere that would gladly jump at the opportunity to go with you beyond the stars, but I suggest that you phrase it a little more...delicately in the future," he says with a smile. "Friendly though we may be, Hunters are often a prideful lot, and may not appreciate the idea that they need to be rescued from anything." The asari flinch at the faux pas, but the Commander waves it off. "I've taken enough of your time today. Thank you for indulging my curiosity, ladies, and if you have any further questions or concerns, my door is always open for you." The asari stand up and bid the Commander farewell, bowing their heads in respect before Percy leads them away.

Now alone in his office, the Commander shuffles through his notes, looking for any additions or corrections that he can make. While technically all interconnected, the various branches of the Hunter's Guild typically operate independently of one another. Astera, being the first and currently only major branch of the Guild in the New World, has enjoyed an especially great degree of autonomy compared to its sister branches. This disconnect often leads to a lack of information exchange between the various branches, but the information that he has just received could affect the entire world. If it were his choice, he would have this information copied and sent on the first boat to leave port, but despite being the leader in the eyes of many of the town's citizens after his grandfather passed and he inherited his title, he was not the official leader of Astera. Any decisions of such a degree could only be approved by the Guild Master, a representative appointed by the Hunter's Guild itself. He hears a wizened voice coming from his doorway.

"And what did our lovely guests have to say, Commander?" his visitor asks. Speak of the deviljho.

At his doorway stands the Guild Master, a wizened wyverian whose head barely reaches the Commander's chest. She hobbles in, leaning on a walking stick as her back bows with age. A thick veil is draped over her head like a hood, though if one looks closely they can see that her right ear is missing.

"They had quite the tale to tell," the Commander says as the Guild Master slides herself onto a seat. "And I'm inclined to believe it. It makes sense, and I doubt that anyone would go so far as to create technology that we have never seen before, even from the Ancient Civilization, to perpetuate a hoax." He recounts what the asari had just told him, passing his notes to the Guild Master to look over.

"Fascinating," she says as she scans the pages in her hands. "Though these rachni concern me. You are certain that none of them survived?"

"They seem to think so," the Commander answers. "They said that they destroyed their ship, and I doubt that even these rachni can survive an explosion that can turn night into day."

"I would not be so certain," the Guild Master gently chides him, "they survived the same explosion, after all." The Commander can find no response to that. "While it sounds like they found this world by accident, if one can find us, even by happenstance, then there is not reason why others cannot." She runs her taloned hands over her wrinkled forehead. "The problem I am seeing is, I cannot imagine what we could realistically do should they find us. The Hunters might be able to repel their warriors; from what you have gathered, they do not seem especially impressive. But if they decide to bombard us from the skies? We might as well be ants trying to take down an Elder Dragon."

"Even so, this is not something that can simply be ignored," the Commander points out. The Guild Master releases a weary sigh.

"No, it cannot," she agrees. "I will send this information to Dundorma, with a recommendation that it be forwarded to all other Guild branches. Even if there is nothing we can do against these beasts, we can at least make certain that they do not take us by surprise."

"Thank you," the Commander says, relief seeping through his body. The Guild Master's lips curve into a wistful smile.

"Still, an entire civilization between the stars," she sighs. "Oh, if only I were a few hundred years younger, I would be first in line to see it."

"You can always ask our guests," the Commander says. "I'm sure that they'd be willing to take you along if their people ever come to rescue them."

"Oh, how kind of you to consider this old woman's feelings," she says with a laugh. "But alas, my adventuring days are far behind me. It is my duty to safeguard the past; it is the privilege of the young to blaze new trails. Although…" she trails off, rubbing her chin in thought.

"...Ma'am?" the Commander asks in confusion, jolting her from her thoughts.

"Ah, it's nothing, just a stray thought," she waves away his concern. "When you get to be my age, they tend to gather like flies to a dung heap. Pay me no heed." She gets up from her seat and turns to leave, notes in hand. "I'll arrange to have these delivered to Headquarters. In the meantime, continue to ensure that our guests feel welcome and comfortable."

"I will, Ma'am," the Commander says. As she leaves, he continues, "A whole new world has just opened up to us. There is already a threat lurking in the shadows, waiting to find us. What if there are more?" The Guild Master stops to consider his words.

"Not words I would have expected from you, Commander," she finally says. Half-teasingly she adds, "Has old age dulled your claws?"

"Hmph, hardly," he scoffs, "I'm just concerned about how it could affect the people I'm responsible for protecting."

"Commendable," the Guild Master concedes. "Still, as a former Hunter, you should know that danger and wonder are often found hand-in-hand. The world above us can be fraught with danger, yes, but it can also be filled with beauty. I can only hope we both live long enough to see but a glimpse of it." With nothing left to say, she turns to leave. "Good day to you, Commander."

"And to you as well, Guild Master."

I hope you all liked that. I doubt I'll be posting again within the next few weeks, so have a merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a happy new year.


End file.
